


Sweet As a Strawberry

by bookowl2000



Series: Drabbles [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: Annette is as sweet as a strawberry so this is fitting, Incredibly Self-Indulgent, Lirika Matoshi Strawberry Dress, Minor Annette Fantine Dominic/Felix Hugo Fraldarius, Minor Mercedes von Matritz/Sylvain Jose Gautier, Modern AU, no beta we die like Glenn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-21
Updated: 2020-08-21
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:46:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,439
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26026678
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bookowl2000/pseuds/bookowl2000
Summary: Annette, the strawberry dress, and a wonderful day.Written for the Felannie discord server drabble prompt “Picnics.”All credit to Lirika Matoshi for designing the gorgeous strawberry dress.
Relationships: Annette Fantine Dominic & Mercedes von Martritz
Series: Drabbles [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1894324
Comments: 2
Kudos: 6





	Sweet As a Strawberry

**Author's Note:**

> The week of this prompt was the same week the strawberry dress was trending, and I just think it would be so cute on Annette. At risk of my future self cringing at current me, I wrote this self-indulgent fic.

Annette was not supposed to be doing her makeup. As written in her meticulously organized planner, Annette should have been finishing her neuroscience assignment by now. In fact, she had genuinely tried to work on it. The problem was she could no longer concentrate the moment she saw the package she had been eagerly waiting for was going to arrive at noon.

She really should have expected it. Never the patient type, Annette had fussed over the red ribbons she had bought, worried they wouldn’t match. Then Mercie asked her how she was planning to do her makeup. From there, it was a quick slippery slope to the decision to prepare her hair and makeup for when she tried on the dress once it arrived. The prospect of dressing up was too exciting to resist.

What a dress it was! A few months before, Annette had been scrolling through Instagram, occasionally showing Mercie an influencer’s outfit she liked. When the pale pink dress adorned with glitter strawberries appeared on her screen, Annette had immediately fallen in love. Although her schedule was already hectic as she managed her classes, job, and preparation for the annual Biomedtronic Design Competition, Annette had endeavored to provide extra tutoring sessions to save for the pricey gown. It was no easy feat, especially when she had to resist her impulsive shopping urge. After the arduous competition, Annette bought the dress the second she sat in the airplane that was to take her home. Here she was a week later, mouth open as she applied nude pink lipstick.

“Felix won’t be able to take his eyes off you tonight.” Mercie teased, her reflection smiling slyly at Annette. 

“Oh, Mercie,” Annette groaned, still easily flustered by her friend’s remarks even after a year with Felix. She turned to face her friend and leaned against her vanity, nibbling on her lower lip. “You sure the dress isn’t too much?” 

“We’re celebrating you tonight, silly. I say you can wear whatever you’d like, it’s not every day you place first in an international competition,” Mercedes replied airily. Annette wished she could face the world as care-free as Mercie did. One moment she was stressed about their dinner reservation with Felix and Sylvain, the next she daydreamed about her outfit. Then she worried about whether it would fit or not. Like so the cycle would continue.

“You’re right Mercie. I should stick with my decision!” Annette declared enthusiastically, hoping it would imbue her with the self-confidence she needed. “I should just consider the dress arriving on time as fate.” With her new conviction, she turned around to get started on her hair.

“That’s the spirit, Annie,” Mercie replied before returning to her crocheting. Annette hummed her Fruits song to fill the silence as she gently curled the ends of her hair, hoping to give it some bounce. Just as she finished tying two segments back, Mercedes’ phone buzzed.

A glance at the mirror revealed Mercedes’ exasperated expression as she hurriedly replied to, Annette presumed, Sylvain.

“Trouble in paradise?” she asked. 

Mercedes gave an indelicate snort, which Annette had always found endearing. “Sylvain never ceases to surprise me with his crazy ideas.” The pair giggled, and Annette wondered what mischief Sylvain had gotten up to this time. 

“Do I even want to know?”

“No,” Mercedes replied cheerfully. She finally looked up at Annette and clapped her hands together happily. “You look so cute, Annie. Need any help with the ribbon?”

Annette gave her friend a grateful smile. “I was just about to ask.”

Mercedes helped tie the shiny ruby ribbon into a bow and then carefully rested her head on top of Annette’s. There was something about Mercedes’ expression that made Annette curious.

“What’s on your mind?”

“Oh, I was just thinking about how you’ve always been obsessed with strawberries. Remember when we first met in high school?”

Annette returned her friend’s grin. “Of course. I was a scared new freshman and you were a junior.”

“That’s right. You stopped by my locker, making your way through a container of strawberries, and said you loved my crochet donut keychain.”

“You’ve always been talented! And didn’t you let me try your strawberry muffins the next day?” Annette raised a hand to her forehead, pretending to swoon. “My life has forever changed since that day.” 

Mercedes giggled. “I see, you only liked me because I can bake.”

“Mercie!”

The girls were startled out of memory lane as the doorbell rang. They stared at each other in silent shock for a beat before Annette rushed to the door, Mercedes walking hurriedly behind her.

Twenty minutes later (half of which were spent admiring the dress and thinking that the pictures had not done it enough justice), Annette faced her reflection with awe. A twist of her hips swirled the pretty pink tulle and lifted the ruffles that lined the bottom. One admiring hand poked the short puff sleeves, and the other ran over the ties that accentuated her waist. The glitter strawberries, which formed a fun pattern all over the dress, twinkled from the light that filtered into the room. Annette felt like a princess who lived hidden at a cottage or a fairy that looked over a field of flowers.

The dress was perfect.

She slipped on the velvet flats she had bought to match the ribbon in her copper hair. Although she wished to, Annette didn’t buy heels not out of fear for herself, but because she didn’t trust herself not to trip and ruin the dress.

When Annette entered the living room, she was met with Mercedes’ surprised gasp.

“How lovely!” Her friend rushed over and grabbed her hands, and the two spun happily, squealing nearly incoherently about the dress. 

“I’m getting dizzy,” Annette giggled, bringing them both to a stop. Finally calm, Annette remembered her promise. “Oh, I need to send a picture to Mother!” 

“Yes you do,” Mercedes agreed as she fixed Annette’s hair. “I got it,” she exclaimed. “Why don’t we go to the park? The dress is too lovely for our apartment, and I’m sure the sunlight will just add to its radiance.” The ‘park’ was a large square field enclosed by the apartment buildings situated around it, including the one the girls resided in.

Annette was tempted, envisioning picturesque images that would be perfect for her Instagram feed. However, she also didn’t want to bother Mercie, who had already done so much for her. 

“It’s okay, Mercie, I don’t want to bother.”

“Don’t say that, Annie! And it’ll give me the chance to use my professional camera.”

“You do, Mercie. For your online store.” 

Mercedes dismissively waved a hand at the mention of her Etsy store. “That’s not the same. Think about the new patch of flowers we found, it’s the perfect spot.” Her tone was compelling, and Annette felt herself slowly succumb. 

“Aw, alright. It does sound fun.” Annette moved toward the window, their fourth story view gave the perfect vantage point to see if the park was crowded. She was stopped, however, when Mercedes grabbed her wrist.

“Annie, you’re the organized one out of the two of us. Do you remember where I put the camera?”

“Of course.” Mercie tended to absentmindedly put whatever she was using aside as her thoughts drifted, leaving Annette to find and store it. In this case, Annette had to retrieve the device from the hallway closet, which was only organized due to Annette’s religious cleaning. 

The two girls soon hurried out. Annette immediately admired the warm weather and the scent of flowers that hung in the air. She had always been grateful that she and Mercie had found their apartment, for the expansive park in front of her was sure to always lift her mood. Luckily, as it was a weekday, there weren’t many people, leaving the lush space mostly empty. 

“Where shall we start?” she asked, turning to face her friend.

“How about by the statues? The flowers around them are nice.” Mercedes recommended, pointing to the center of the field. There, multiple statues of various shapes and sizes formed an exhibit so large that it blocked the view of the opposite side of the park. They were encapsulated by various bushes and plants that provided a vibrant rainbow base. 

Annette readily agreed, letting Mercedes take control. The dress gave a sort of bravery and confidence Annette wasn’t normally accustomed to, and she posed in frilly ways that she never had before (she may have been mirroring one of her favorite influencers). 

“The sunlight is perfect for pictures today,” said Mercedes as she observed the last few pictures she had taken.

“So is the weather,” Annette added, referring to the cool breeze that lifted the ends of her orange hair. She gasped as an idea suddenly came to her. “How about we have a picnic?”

Mercedes gave a startled laugh that confused Annette. “Why that’s a wonderful idea, Annie. I’m sure we’ll be hungry once we finish up here.” Mercedes' tone was even as she answered, so Annette disregarded her earlier behavior. Perhaps she had reminded Mercie of Sylvain’s earlier text.

After finishing at the front, Mercedes beckoned her to the next side, insisting that Annette had to take a picture among one of her favorites. They laughed themselves hoarse as they tried to capture a picture mid-leap. Once they finished, Annette noticed that the statue at the edge was a fairy, her hand raised in the air as if she was casting a spell. It wasn’t lost on Annette how it mirrored her earlier thoughts.

Annette stood and posed the same way as the fairy.

“Mercie, look! Is this cute?” 

Mercedes’ answer was to lift her camera. 

Mercedes eyed the statue critically, a smile appearing as she thought of something. “Scoot to the side, Annie,” Mercedes ordered, motioning to the right. Annette did as Mercedes asked, stopping only when her friend stopped waving her hand. The statue was now next to her. 

“Okay, now pose as if the fairy’s magic was how you got the dress.” 

“That’s such a cute idea, Mercie! You should make stories like these instead of ghost stories.”

“But ghost stories are much more fun. Now pose.”

Annette wasn’t sure what to do exactly, so she lifted the skirt of her dress and looked down at it as if in wonder. 

What she didn’t know was that, immediately after snapping the photo, her friend had started a video.

“Surprise!” 

“Oh sweet strawberry cornflakes!” Annette exclaimed, whirling around to find her peers from university. Various blankets and picnic baskets were littered around the space, all carefully placed so that they’d remain hidden behind the statues. Caspar pumped his fist into the air excitedly, and Dedue stood with crossed arms and a proud smile. Claude smirked the same way he did when a scheme went well, and Lindhart seemed as if he was startled awake, except without the usual accompanying annoyance. Her gaze panned over her friends until it finally landed on Felix, standing at the edge of the group, who gave her the soft smile that was reserved for her. 

“What… what is this?”

“Why, a celebration of your achievement on the international stage of course,” Ferdinand declared, the toss he gave to his hair adding to the dramatics of his speech. “You have raised the image of Garreg Mach, and therefore ours. It is only natural-“

Dorothea placed a pacifying hand on his arm, cutting him off. “What he means is we’re proud of you.”

“And we brought cake to celebrate,” Lysithea chimed in, giving an eager glance at a box.

Annette raised a hand to her heart, touched. She had always been one to put her head down and work hard, trying to meet the impossible expectations she set for herself. Always trying to prove herself and her worth. For her friends, the diverse group she met over the past few years at Garreg Mach University, to do this for her meant more than they could ever know.

Suddenly overwhelmed, Annette fanned her face to try and prevent the tears that threatened to spill. She could _not_ ruin her mascara.

Felix strode over, standing in front of her to block her from the view of the rest. “Is something wrong?” he asked, his voice low and gentle. 

Annette sniffled. “Oh no, Felix, these are happy tears.”

Felix moved to her side, content now that he knew she wasn’t upset. He wrapped an arm around her shoulders, providing silent support. Mercie came to stand by her other side, reminding Annette that her friend certainly had to have been a part of the entire scheme. 

“Mercie!” she cried, “you knew all along?”

Mercedes tittered behind her hand. “Of course.”

Annette marveled at how Mercedes hid it so well, and seriously considered whether any of her decisions were her own or a part of Mercedes’ machinations.

“Annette, that dress is to die for,” Hilda complimented, pulling Annette out of her thoughts, “and you look adorably gorgeous.”

“Felix definitely agrees there, his jaw literally dropped when he saw her,” Sylvain teased, his hands held in a lax position behind his neck.

Annette and Felix simultaneously reddened. The glare that Felix shot in his best friend’s direction was venomous. 

“Be nice, Sylvain,” Mercedes chided as if she wasn’t always teasing the two with him. 

“Time to dig in,” Raphael roared, his appetite interrupting the moment. Ingrid’s eager nod indicated she agreed. 

Everyone spread themselves out along the blankets and enjoyed the merriment of food with good friends. Their laughter could be heard all across the park, and Annette’s incessant smile never lessened. In the years to come, the group would fondly reminisce over the special picnic with memories immortalized by Bernadetta, who had meekly asked Mercedes if she could use her camera. Everyone had their favorites, whether it was the picture of Petra and Leonie competing to see who could lift Ashe or Lorenz the longest (one look at Lorenz’s expression was sure to set their laughter off), or of Hubert and Felix being forced to eat cake by their mischievous friends. 

Annette even had one picture framed. It was near the end, as the sun was starting to set. Bernadette had captured Mercie and her mid-chatter, Mercedes had her head resting on Sylvain’s lap while Annette leaned against Felix’s shoulder. The rest of their friends could be seen in the background, lazing about as the gathering was more subdued. Every time Annette saw the picture, she felt the same peaceful contentment of the moment wash over her. And, well, Annette adored how her strawberry dress looked.

**Author's Note:**

> You can bet everyone posed for the picture behind Annette right before they surprised her with varying degrees of hilarity. Everyone except Felix that is, who was too absorbed in staring at his sweet-as-a-strawberry girlfriend. 
> 
> Also, I only realized after starting this fic that I like to surprise Annette too much in my works. Buuut *checks notes* I don’t think I have any plans to again soon. And really, is there any such thing as celebrating Annette too much? I don’t think so.


End file.
